I always hated high-school shows and high-school movies, because they were always about the cool kids. It was always about dating and sex, and all the popular kids, and the good-looking kids. And the nerds were super-nerdy cartoons, with tape on their glasses. I never saw 'my people' portrayed accurately.

Period costume films are fun to discover, but they're not relatable. It's more, 'Wow, that's cool - did it really look like that back then?' Whereas with a comedy, you're like, 'Yeah, that's me, that's my friends.' No matter what, I want people to relate.

Bad women's comedies are made by men who didn't consult enough women.

My style of comedy is very real and bittersweet, and sort of always on the verge of kind of being tragic.

You have to know everything. You have to know how to light a scene. You have to know all this technical stuff about directing. No, you don't. You can know as much or as little as you have to. Your main job is to get great performances and tell the story correctly and capture it correctly. Then it's just basically yours to complicate or simplify as much as you want.

Ever since I was a little kid, I've felt comfortable in a suit. It all started when my mom bought me a three-piece Pierre Cardin suit. I wore that thing everywhere. Eventually I realized I was going to be the kid who got beat up in school, but I kept wearing it.

To me, there's nothing funnier than funny people in peril, because it's just a great springboard for people to be at a heightened emotionality and things get funnier.